In Session » Tracy Tarumhttp://blogs.tennessean.com/politics
Tennessee PoliticsMon, 07 Apr 2014 14:51:50 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6Supposed GOP primary deals – and denialshttp://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/2012/supposed-gop-primary-deals-and-denials/
http://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/2012/supposed-gop-primary-deals-and-denials/#commentsTue, 24 Jul 2012 20:58:33 +0000Michael Casshttp://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/?p=17715A second candidate for the Republican nomination in the Fifth Congressional District said this week that rival Bob Ries asked him to exit the race and support Ries, who was said to have offered to leave office before the end of his first term and work to name his own successor.

Ries, who also ran in 2010, denied the charge for a second time.

Tracy Tarum, who is on the GOP ballot but not really trying to win this year, said Ries offered him that deal in mid-April, a few days after the withdrawal deadline passed. Brad Staats, the best-funded candidate in the five-man race, said the same thing about Ries in a recent interview.

“He did bring that up as something he would be willing to do,” Tarum said. “With six months to go or so, he would step aside, presumably (having) worked out in advance with the governor to appoint me to fill his seat that he was vacating. That way I would be already an incumbent (heading into the 2014 election). He did mention that.”

When The Tennessean asked Ries about Staats’ accusation last week, he called it “a damn lie.” Asked today about Tarum’s comments, Ries said he thinks more of Tarum’s political future than Staats’, but he reiterated that he knows he can’t appoint his own successor.

Ries acknowledged he may have told Tarum “I might help groom him.”

“I have never had any intention and never told anybody that I was not going to serve out my term,” he said. “And I never told anybody I was going to pick them as my successor, because I can’t.”

The winner of the Republican primary on Aug. 2 will face U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a five-term incumbent, in the general election in November.